I just got back from Westerly, which is just down the coast from where we are. I'd heard that last week's storm damage was severe. There were reports of cars, which had been buried in the Hurricane of 1938, being unearthed. I had to see that.

I grabbed the camera and hopped in the Hyundai. Drove southwest towards Westerly. My destination was the old Andrea Hotel, which is right on the beach, just west of Misquamicut. I pulled into the hotel's lot, parked the car and got out. Walked down onto the beach, which was strewn with flotsam and jetsam. And rocks. Lots of rocks. There was no beach to speak of. And here it is, less than a week until May. The tourists will be coming soon. They come every year at this time. To rape and plunder, plunder and rape. The metallic clicking sound you hear these days is south county Rhode Island fathers locking up their daughters.

There's a bumper sticker I see every now and then. Stuck on the back of cars belonging to people like me: full-time residents. The stickers read:

They call it tourist season. So why can't we shoot them?

Last time I fired a gun was when I was in the Air Force. It was an M-16. I was in the barracks trying to read. This guy down the hall was playing Led Zepplin's " Whole Lota Love " with the sound cranked up to 11 on a scale of ten. I grabbed my M-16, walked down the hall, opened his door and shot him.

I'm kidding.

But I did fire an M-16 every now and then. We were required to go to the shooting range on a regular basis...

Where in God's name was I? How did I get to talking about M-16s? Me? Someone who's as likely to have a gun in his hand as having Elle McPherson in his arms.

Oh yeah. That bumper sticker. I kinda like it. Even though I'm not exactly a card carrying NRA member.

Long post short. I saw one of those old cars. It was a rusty old chassis, and you could hardly make out that it was a car once. What gave it away was the chrome, and a hole where the headlight had been. Jesus, I thought. That is one old car. Buried all those years. Then I saw it. The bumper sticker, or part of what had been one once. All I could make out was:

ourist seas. Why can't we sh

Just kidding again.

There are times when I think that's what they'll carve into my tombstone:

I was just kidding.